I'm going to explain why I think it's plausible that the Russians paid Reade to say this. I know many of you are resisting that theory because there are also other plausible explanations which seem less nefarious and therefore less conspiratorial. But bear with me for a moment and look at the timeline:
March 2019. Reade "me toos" after a number of other women say that Biden touched them in ways which, though not sexual assault, made them feel uncomfortable.
December 2019. Reade posts a pro-Russia blog which is ludicrously praising of Putin. When later asked about why she wrote this, she claimed it was an abortive attempt to write a novel. It wasn't. It's a standard format political blog with her name on it.
April, 2020, right after Biden is seen to be clinching the primary, she comes out with an accusation of sexual assault.
The Russians study our political climate. They know any accusation of sexual assault against a democrat, even one of marginal credibility, is a problem for the candidate because it will divide democrats.
They've seen republicans try it already, but do it stupidly, with Jacob Wohl who made the colossal mistake of making himself, a known financial fraudster, the center of attention by acting as the front for the victim, killing the storiy's credibility before it even started. Wohl made the accusation before revealing the "victim," then press coverage over Wohl's history had scared off the "victims."
Better to have it come from a "victim" on her own. Better still if it's a democrat. Then the allegations came out last year. Presto, a bunch of democrat women having accused Biden of something kind of sort of but not quite sexual assault.
So they look for their potential "victim" among this group. Out of the several women, the others all have successful careers and would likely never go along with it. But Reade is the one who's either unemployed or marginally employed.
So late last year they offer her a few bucks to write a pro-Putin blog. They don't care about the impact of the blog because she's too marginal of a public figure for anyone to be listening to her. They just want to see if she's willing to say something she doesn't believe for money. She does it. By the way, it is well known that this is how Russian intelligence operates: they ask for small stuff before asking for the big stuff. It's a test and a way to acclimate the person they are using.
Then comes April of this year, and they offer her a much larger pot of money...
This all seems entirely plausible to me. It may well not have happened. She may have lied to write a lucrative book. But it's well within the realm of possibility, and it does all logically add up with known facts.